UK plans to issue first G7 digital sovereign bond by early 2027

the UK plans to issue its first digital sovereign bond by early 2027, becoming the first G7 country to issue government debt on a distributed ledger. The bond will be listed on HSBC’s Orion platform and included in the digital securities sandbox of the Bank of England (BoE) and the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to test shorter settlement times and lower costs. BoE Governor Andrew Bailey stated that the BoE plans to make the bond eligible as collateral for market operations, allowing banks to use the bond in central bank funding transactions.